S10.5. Barbasetti's Yielding Sabre Parries

We normally think about Yielding or Ceding Parries as being something one does in foil, and to some extent in epee, fencing.  Because they are done in response to blade pressure by an opponent who is trying to deflect your blade, and because they require continual contact with the opponent's blade, they would seem to be not particularly useful in a cut weapon.  And yet Maestro di Scherma Luigi Barbasetti's 1936 The Art of the Sabre and the Epee contains two different classes of yielding parries with a total of 6 different parries.

Barbasetti first describes what might be termed true yielding parries.  Because sabre is both a point and cut weapon, sabre technique when Barbasetti first wrote the textbook that became The Art of the Sabre and the Epee included substantial point work and the use of the filo (translated as the graze), an attack in the bound opposition thrust family.  Barbasetti's volume (first in Italian and then translated to German) dates from the early days after he assumed the directorship of the Austro-Hungarian Normal Military Fencing School of Wiener-Neustadt in 1895.  However, the thrust with the opponent's blade bound is retained in the sabre lexicon throughout the classical period and as late as Beke and Polgar's 1963 classic The Methodology of Sabre Fencing.

Barbasetti identifies two yielding parries that are appropriate for use against the Filo.  Both of these are intended for use against pressure from the outside line.  Against pressure in Third, the fencer follows the pressure to lowers the point to the inside, turns the cutting edge to the inside, and raises the guard in one flowing motion maintaining contact around the attacker's blade to form First and  complete the parry of Yielding in Prime.  Against pressure in Second, the fencer again follows the pressure to swing the point upward and around the attacker's blade, bringing the guard downward in one flowing motion to form Low Fourth and complete the parry of Yielding in Low Quarte.  Both of these parries appear in Beke and Polgar in substantially this form.

However, Barbasetti goes further by recognizing that the principle of yielding can be used in the defence against percussion.  His discussion focuses on defence against the beat of the blade in an invitation.  To understand his descriptions it is important to understand two concepts.  First, invitations are part of the consistent use of the blade in a single line.  The position of a Guard of Third is operationalized against an attack by the Parry of Third displacing the parrying blade as needed to the outside.  And the guard is also operationalized by the Invitation of Third which also moves the blade further to the outside, in this case to increase the fencer's exposure in the Line of Fourth.

Second, one response to an invitation is to attack in the opening line; in the case above of an Invitation in Third, the opening line is Fourth.  However, if a fencer is inviting in Third, the attacker should expect that the defender is expecting an attack in Fourth, is ready for it, and will enthusiastically parry and riposte in Fourth.  The answer to preserve the opening is an attack prepared by a beat in what Barbasetti terms the inner line.  This is an attack from the center line of the fencer to drive the invitation further away from the center line either from the inside toward the outside line (a beat in fourth or low fourth toward third or second) or from the outside toward the inside (a beat in Third or Second toward Fourth or First).  Barbasetti's application of the yielding principle is to use the momentum imparted by the beat to perform the same function as pressure, even though the pivot will be around the movement of the opponent's blade rather than maintained by contact with the blade.

Barbasetti identifies four techniques related to response to a beat on the invitation:

• In the case of a preparatory beat in Second against an Invitation in Prime, followed by an attack to the chest, a Yield in Low Quarte, pivoting the blade upward over the beat and the guard downward to roll into the inner line and close with the parry against the attack.
• In the case of a preparatory beat in the low line against an Invitation in Second, followed by a cut to the flank, a Yield in Low Tierce, pivoting the blade upward over the beat and the guard downward to roll into the inner line and close with the parry against the attack.
• In the case of a preparatory beat in Fourth against an invitation in Third, followed by a cut to the arm, a Yield in Septime, pivoting the blade downward to the outside, raising the hand and forearm and guard, directing the cutting edge to the outside to interpose the blade to parry the attack.
• In the case of a preparatory beat in Third against an Invitation in Fourth, followed by a cut to the inside cheek, a Yield in Prime, pivoting the blade under the beat and the guard upward, to roll into the inner line and close with the parry against the attack.

Barbasetti does not indicate why these parries should be used only against invitations.  The reason may be that the wider position of the invitation allows more time for the parry to form after the beat.  However, it would seem that they might have utility against a slow beat or a beat with a hesitation in the initiation of the final movement of the attack.

Copyright 2018 by Walter G. Green III.

 
Barbesetti's Yielding Sabre Parries by Walter G. Green III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.